Developers Look Forward to Java SE 8's Features
Despite the decision by Oracle to remove the stripped implementations feature and then defer Project Jigsaw to the proposed 2015 release of Java SE 9, Java SE 8’s release on March 18 is quickly causing excitement and anticipation among developers.
The SD Times points out that a large majority of developers are already planning to switch over to the new version of Java. A survey done by Typesafe, a vendor of middleware, indicated that as many as two-thirds of respondents have plans to upgrade to Java 8, with more than half of those saying they would do it within a year. That could further widen the gap for the 22 percent of developers still reportedly using Java 6.
So, what's causing developers to anticipate the release? The features that are gaining the most attention on the Internet are the addition of lambda expressions and other improvements and updates to the collections that are allowing for a better exploitation of lambdas.
Lambda functions, commonly known as anonymous expressions, are functions that are defined and even called without being bound and associated to an identifier. Lambdas boost programming on multi-core processors by adding closures and allowing the expressions to be used by other functions with more flexibility.
"It's no surprise that 83 percent of respondents chose lambda expressions as their favorite feature of Java 8," the Typesafe report about its survey says. "It's worth noting that the second most popular response was the improvements to the collections that are being added to exploit lambdas."
It should be noted that Java already has anonymous classes, which, similar to the concept of anonymous expressions, are classes that are not bound to an identity or name upon creation. But with the addition of lambda functions in Java 8, Java now joins the other mainstream languages—such as C#, Ruby, Python, and JavaScript—that already support lambda functions.
Will your business switch to Java 8? Are you excited for the new release? Do you use Java enough for the release to impact you or your company? Tell us in the comments below.
